The Tiny Tina's Dragon's Keep DLC for Borderlands 2 is, hands down, one of the best DLCs in recent memory for any game. The Dungeons & Dragons element is fantastic, especially with the voiceovers from all of the game's main characters. Roland even gets resurrected, and you can enjoy a very special guest appearance from Butt Stallion, who literally shits gold and gifts. Basically all of your favorite classic RPG enemies try and stop you from winning a game Tiny Tina makes up on the fly. It's brilliant.

Wed Aug 07, 2013 12:53 pm

NeuroA champion of Kurtis SP

Joined: 19 Jul 2002
Posts: 7839

borderlands combat is more or less like playing a COD game, you shoot a bunch and die a bunch shoot a bunch and die a bunch repeat for infinity, gets very annoying after awhile

or maybe im just terrible at it?

Wed Aug 07, 2013 10:44 pm

NeuroA champion of Kurtis SP

Joined: 19 Jul 2002
Posts: 7839

i did / do not like dead island , is state of decay much better than that piece of shit game

what about comparing state of decay to red dead, is that fair at all

what about comparing state of decay to skyrim, is that fair at all?

did you hear skyrim got awarded for the best game of this generation ? is that fair ? would red dead come real close?or beat skyrim as in pure classicness?

share your thoughts people, i dont have anyone to talk about videogames with

Thu Aug 08, 2013 12:51 am

Juangirls don juan anything to do with me

Joined: 16 Sep 2003
Posts: 1134
Location: Ohio

its old, but I never did play Crackdown and it's free on xbox live, so I downloaded it and just started.

Thu Aug 08, 2013 7:56 am

Captiv8

Joined: 25 Aug 2006
Posts: 8546
Location: Third Coast

State of Decay is only like RDR and Skyrim in the sense that you have an open environment to explore. Other than that, there is no comparison. Just play the demo.

As far as Skyrim as game of a generation, I don't agree. I think Fallout 3 is much more immersive, fun, and replayable. I also think the DLC was much better. And, given the modern cultural obsession with the apocalypse, Fallout 3 is much more emblematic of the generational zeitgeist. But that's me.

And Crackdown, for a launch title, is really good. I had a lot of fun playing, and then replaying, it. Now that it's free, why not?

Thu Aug 08, 2013 10:09 am

NeuroA champion of Kurtis SP

Joined: 19 Jul 2002
Posts: 7839

crackdown was the very very first 360 game i got i believe, and had tons and tons of fun playing it for a long time, i still have the disc, i may have to revisit it, that dj krush track at the title screen is embedded in my head ,i never did play crackdown 2

Thu Aug 08, 2013 10:13 am

Sarcastro

Joined: 27 Sep 2002
Posts: 3281

Skyrim as game of this generation makes sense because this entire generation seemed to be about forgetting about fun and gameplay and instead putting in an endless amount of half-interesting crap and calling your game revolutionary because it has X miles of fake land mass for you to aimlessly walk around in.

Open World is the Auto-Tune of the video game industry.

Thu Aug 08, 2013 10:51 am

Mark in Minnesota

Joined: 02 Jan 2004
Posts: 2050
Location: Saint Louis Park, MN

Yes, in the sense that it can be dope as fuck or it can be misused.

L.A. Noire was actively harmed by its open-world design.

Red Dead Redemption was made beautiful by it.

Skyrim is a tremendous technical achievement. Fallout 3 is a less breathtaking instance of the same technical achievement. But we shouldn't talk about technical achievement alone when we try to nominate a "game of the generation." We should talk about impact on gamers. All of this is incredibly subjective--so the rest of this is my subjective take on it.

When I think about breakout games of the Xbox/PS2/GameCube era, GTA3 and Halo are obvious standouts. So was Morrowind.

Breakouts of this current era:
- Mass Effect trilogy; incrementally built on the Bioware RPG concept shown in previous generators by Baldur's Gate, KOTOR, and Jade Empire--but integrated action RPG concepts and stored radical amounts of game state between titles.
- Gears of War trilogy: innovated a new genre, the Third Person Shooter. Previous generations had done this in titles like Killswitch, but Gears made real and important additions to the state of the art. Plus the cooperative multiplayer in things like Horde Mode.
- Assassin's Creed franchise: substantial innovations to the "action platformer" franchise, particularly with their approach to freerunning and fully realized NPC crowds.

Honorable mentions:
- Dead Space pushed the state of the art in UI.
- Portal franchise for innovating in the use of puzzles and physics simulation in FPS.
- Red Dead Redemption for its multiplayer elements.
- Far Cry 3 for its merging of FPS with open-world RPG.

I think Bethesda's action RPGs are tough to rate on this scale. Oblivion was strictly incremental improvement over Morrowind. Fallout 3 rehabilitated a long-dormant franchise and was a great game which used music in a really powerful way, but I think that in many ways Fallout: New Vegas surpassed it. Skyrim was more than just incremental improvement over its predecessors, it added some truly novel components, particularly in terms of making combat more tactile and dynamic. I think collectively those titles deserve to be mentioned as something better than just an honorable mention.

Thu Aug 08, 2013 12:14 pm

Juangirls don juan anything to do with me

Joined: 16 Sep 2003
Posts: 1134
Location: Ohio

Reading those Crackdown posts made me google it to see the year it came out, and I came across this article posted 3 hours ago (on gamespot anyway...might be old news as far as I know)

I only played for about 30 minutes because of time restraints, but I think it can be a decent time killer game when I'm bored of everything else...which I currently am.

Also, has anyone gotten that Brothers game on Summer of Arcade that was just released? I haven't really watched many videos but I'd rather just hear someone's word if it is worth buying or not

Thu Aug 08, 2013 12:14 pm

nodirectionhome

Joined: 08 Jun 2006
Posts: 130

Sarcastro wrote:
Open World is the Auto-Tune of the video game industry.

In the sense that people are using it? I don't get this line at all?

I'm not defending it as being labeled as the game of the generation, but for this generation of consoles it definitely ranks up there. "The Last of Us", also a contender, is a great game that is almost the exact opposite in concept than Skyrim. The "fun" of Skyrim is the freedom to not be held on a linear track like TLOU. You don't even have to do missions if you don't want to in Skyrim. I knew a guy who played Fallout 3 and "finished" the game because he couldn't do missions since all he did was kill everyone. The point is, it not aimless, it's what you make of it.

Calling it the Auto-tune of the video game industry is extremely self-limiting in what you're trying to say. You're comparing a game that is fully fleshed out with hours upon hours of things to do to a thing that is supposed to correct incorrect notes? I still don't even know what you're trying to say with that

Thu Aug 08, 2013 12:21 pm

Brynjar

Joined: 12 Dec 2006
Posts: 1476
Location: Rivertown

The Batman Arkham games are the best this gen (imo) because of the gameplay, the story and voice acting could be shit and they would still be good games.

Thu Aug 08, 2013 12:50 pm

Mark in Minnesota

Joined: 02 Jan 2004
Posts: 2050
Location: Saint Louis Park, MN

I really liked those, but I think State of Decay has more replay value for me than either one of those--and has combat which is in some ways similar.

Thu Aug 08, 2013 1:33 pm

Sarcastro

Joined: 27 Sep 2002
Posts: 3281

nodirectionhome wrote:
I still don't even know what you're trying to say with that

It's a crutch used by people to pretend their crappy product isn't so crappy.

Auto-tune (and I'm talking about the fad version of it, the one that wasn't hidden but it was in your face about the fact that auto-tune is being used) was in every song cause it made everything clubby and "fun," now open world is in every game cause it adds hours to the game and makes things more "fun."

Instead of working on getting the gameplay right or coming up with a great story game developers just waste their time and effort on adding an open world, and a load of recycled quests, and semi-developed crafting mini-games so that by the end you either get a dumbed down version of GTA (if in modern times) or WoW (if in fantasy times), with some small but changes in costume for those outside it.

Some games do it right but for the most part it actually takes away from the game for me, it ruins pacing, it takes away immersion and devalues the entire story and most of the characters involved.

Choose your own adventure books are fun but let's try to aim for writing Moby Dick once in a while.

Thu Aug 08, 2013 4:42 pm

NeuroA champion of Kurtis SP

Joined: 19 Jul 2002
Posts: 7839

Brynjar wrote: The Batman Arkham games are the best this gen (imo) because of the gameplay, the story and voice acting could be shit and they would still be good games.

the batman games are good, and i cant speak for origins yet obviously, but theres no way in hell they are games of the generation